Melbourne Port fees up more than 3000 per cent in three years

Exporters are looking to shift their trade out of Melbourne to cheaper stevedores at ports in Adelaide and Sydney.

Price lift: The cost of shifting a container through Patrick’s Melbourne terminal has risen from $3.50 in early 2017 to $82.50 on exports and $125.80 on imports today.

MELBOURNE risks losing its crown as the home of Australia’s largest food and fibre export container port, as stevedoring giants hit exporters and importers with the highest landside charges in the nation.

In early 2017 stevedore DP World was charging a flat fee on each container imported and exported through the port of just $3.45, while its rival Patrick was charging $3.50.

Both stevedores have since pushed up their charges by more than 3000 per cent, with Patrick now charging each export container $82.50 last month, while an import container fee has surged to $125.80.

DP World’s export container charge will be $79.50 from May 1, while importers will be slugged $125 per container. Even the more recent entrant to the market, Victorian International Container Terminal Ltd, is charging a flat fee of $121.80 on all containers.

Graphic for The Weekly Times online

Peaco director Shane Wall said the hike meant stevedores were making $4 a tonne out of the pulses his firm packed into containers at Donald and put through the Port of Melbourne.

“There’s very, very few people in the supply chain that can make $4 a tonne,” Mr Wall said. “(But) we’re beholden to these port blokes.”

Merbein-based Seaway Intermodal executive general manager Ros Milverton said it wasn’t just the infrastructure charge that had gone up, but the vehicle booking fee system and container chain fees.

“It all adds to the cost of exports,” Ms Milverton said.

“We say to growers (citrus, tablegrape and almond) ‘you will get charged these fees, they’re out of our control’.”

While stevedores have raised their fees at other ports, Melbourne has become the most expensive in the nation, which Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission monitoring reports show is slowly eroding its market share.

The weekly times pocket toon 1

Melbourne’s market share has fallen from 37.1 per cent of the national container trade in 2009-10 to 34.3 per cent today.

Sydney’s Port Botany stands ready to knock Melbourne off its perch, with its share of trade sitting at 33.7 per cent, while Brisbane’s and Adelaide’s share are also growing.

“Port Botany is knocking on the door,” Container Transport Alliance Australia director Neil Chambers said.

“If it wasn’t for the Tasmanian trade volumes, Port Botany would already have the crown.”

In a submission to the Deloitte Access Economics consultants overseeing the Victorian Government’s Port of Melbourne Pricing & Access Review Mr Chambers stated the CTAA had opposed “the massive, unfettered and unregulated increases in infrastructure charges levied by all container stevedores on transport operators (road & rail)”.

But stevedores have justified the fee increases, with Patrick spokesman Paul White stating “it’s important to note that the charges, which vary from port to port, recover only a portion of the costs being absorbed by Patrick”.

MORE

ROAD TO RAIL SCHEME IN LIMBO

OPINION: CRUSHED BY PORT FEES

BIG FALL IN PORT TRADING

“They also reflect the significantly increased investment in landside facilities in recent years.”

But Mr Chambers said there was no clear evidence of that investment delivering benefits to truck and rail operators using the port.

“Truck turnaround times at the container stevedores (measured by transport operators directly), truck utilisation rates, and other indicators of landside interface efficiency and productivity, have not improved commensurate with the massive fee increases. In fact, in some cases they have deteriorated.”

In its submission, the Freight and Trade Alliance in partnership with the Australian Peak Shippers Association reported the fee hikes was forcing exporters to look to other ports and curb investment Victoria.